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Will be interesting to see what effect ascended jewelling (when it comes) has on copper/silver/gold prices. Most people have ascended jewellery already and very reliable ways to get it if they need more. So Xunlai might be more like Elonian Leather Squares (cheap) than Damask (expensive).

But those three ores were undoubtedly a good investment. I say "were", because silver and gold have risen in the last few days...

Will be interesting to see what effect ascended jewelling (when it comes) has on copper/silver/gold prices. Most people have ascended jewellery already and very reliable ways to get it if they need more. So Xunlai might be more like Elonian Leather Squares (cheap) than Damask (expensive).

But those three ores were undoubtedly a good investment. I say "were", because silver and gold have risen in the last few days...

Of course I wonder if they will allow ascended jewels to go in the slots... given as you say otherwise its eas(ier) to get and a lot of people already have them.. One note of warning - gaard has the skill point shard thingey and I bought the ores on bane. After doing home with bane - I went to norn home to get the skill - only it said I already had... If it happens again I will raise a ticket but otherwise - be aware if an alt has got a certain home item you use - activate the home item with that same char.

In other news - suggestions please for a name for my warrior (if I was to role a guardian it would make sense to swap the name over so therefore - what to call the warrior!

I guess this may introduce a way to get ascended jewellery in stat combinations not available from fractals/guild commendation traders. But apart from a few niche builds, that doesn't leave much - Dire for condition based WvW or sentinels for ultratankiness in WvW (kind of difficult with the lack of Azurite). I'm intrigued about where they will go with this.

Critical Damage
Crit Damage as a percentage stat will go away
Replaced by a numeric stat called Ferocity
Balanced to be about 10% less damage overall
PVP crit damage won't change - they feel it's in a good place already
Numeric amount same as "secondary stat" on gear (e.g. 90 power/60 prec/60 fero for berserker)
Celestial will have Ferocity amount equal to all other stats.
Opens up potential for Ferocity to be a primary stat on new stat combo

Sigils
Two sigil slots for two-handed weapons!
No more shared cooldowns!!
RNG reduced - percent chance on crit will probably just become 100% on-crit
Still only one stacking sigil type (bloodlust, perception etc.)
Dual swap sigils WILL both proc. (e.g. Battle + Geomancy or Air + Fire)

PVP
Adding new unlockable stat combos for PVP (similar to how new heal skills are being added)
This is more speculative / for future, probably not in next build

Balance Preview - There will be balance updates in the next build:

Elementalist
Signet of Restoration is restored to full power (no more pve/pvp split)
Armor of Earth cooldown goes from 90s to 75s (pre-cantrip mastery)
3 seconds of Regen added to Water Trident (for up to 5 allies) - support+condi removal for scepter
Burning Speed now evades during cast! (more melee survival for d/d)
Frozen Burst is now a blast finisher! (can combo with Burning Speed)

Warrior
Healing Signet passive reduced by about 8% (~30hps), active may be improved / altered
Pin Down has new animation / tell, cast time increased from 1/4 to 3/4 sec
~This is a non-exhaustive list, full set will be in patch notes.~

I came way too late to the rune market to buy some leftovers. Even the really unpopular ones have quadrupled in price, but it's still a gamble.

It will probably come down to how Ferocity scales with damage but in principal... will that make much of a difference? If Zerker still has Power/Precision/Ferocity as stat line (and assumed that Precision still influences crit chance), the only thing that changes is that it's not a percentage value anymore. This will reduce the overall damage output (yay for longer fights) but not exclusively for Zerker gear. Any gear that had crit damage before will lose damage potential and we end up where we were before, just will less killing power.

I feel that is exactly what people were afraid of. They're not making other stat lines more viable (in an absolute sense, i.e. regarding killing speed) but nerfing the fast (and kind of risky) way lolnobrain Zerkers go about downing stuff.

Edit: Oh, one more thing. If Zerker ends up not being the same thing it was before in regard to playstyle (risk/reward) a lot of people will have wasted mucho resources and time in vain.

Well, in fairness, it sounds like this is the first of a number of changes they have planned. And people think that having two sigils on two-handed weapons will make up for the damage nerf. We'll see, I guess.

I think it could work - having a ferocity build that means a humongous crit bonus but at the potential loss of it happening less often v more power and some ferocity (zerker) v happens more often but less crit damage (assasin - though it will change too) v happens more often but with more crit damage with the loss of overall power - new stat set of prec, ferocity, power

Lots of variations in builds tbh as it could open up more than a few avenues...

But that doesn't change anything in PvE (keep in mind that PvP stays the same, for WvW it might be a bit more relevant?), since that's still the game mode where calculating optimal gear setup for maximum damage is a thing and moreover is encouraged, especially now considering the potential damage nerf that comes with cutting crit dmg as a percentage stat.

I recall hawksbane posting an article some time ago that stated that Anet has some big 'awesome' patch planned for this year after LS season #1 has finished. Does anyone know if they've said anything about expanding the current game world? That's what's limiting my interest in the game at the moment. If there is no new stuff to explore (i.e., new maps, not new enemies in old places) the game will stay more or less the same, no matter how much rebalancing they're doing. Changes to the RNG gemstore business model are also a must somewhere down the line I feel.

Oh no, it won't change the DPS meta per se, if you can even call it that in this game. Ultimately what is happening here is that condition damage is a little bit better, but not in a way that will influence gear choice much. Engineers get a buff from this since as a natural hybrid they weren't as reliant on crit damage in the first place. The question for me is how they will change condition duration on runes, since it would make me really sad if my investment in traveler runes would end up inferior to some 2/2/2 combination.

Of course the supreme damage class is still the staff ele, who will even get buffed with an extra sigil.